by SM Reine
She sat in the darkness, knees pulled up to her chin, arms wrapped around her legs. Her entire body shivered and hurt, and tears filled her eyes. As the hissing of demons streamed through the forest, Bat El bit her lip, trembling and praying.
10
Standing atop the church belfry between two gargoyles, Laila surveyed what remained of Heavenfire, God’s ancient and legendary Fifth Division. She saw several thousand angels, beaten and bloody, armor dented and wounds bandaged. They covered the church roof and courtyard. In the surrounding streets, Laila saw thousands of angel bodies upon the cobblestones. As the ashy sky grumbled, Laila knew that the greatest challenge lay inside the church. Zarel. Demon Queen of Hell. Here waited an evil greater than ten thousand shades.
“Nathaniel!” she called out. “The Wrecking Balls enter with me through the clerestory.” She turned to face several other platoons. “Spear. Falcon. You enter the main gates. You, Blade, enter the back doors. The rest of you wait out here. If any demons try to escape, kill them.” The angels nodded, grim, faces bruised and ashy.
“I’ll enter the main gate with you, Falcon and Spear,” Michael said. The archangel stood upon the church roof between more gargoyles, swan wings spread wide, halo glowing bright even under the fiery sky. Demon blood dripped down his lance and splashed his old Roman armor. He stared at Laila. “If she tries to escape through the clerestory, she’ll meet you. If it’s the main doors she chooses, it’ll be my lance.”
Laila nodded, though she had the feeling that Zarel would rather fight than flee. The archdemon, she knew, might just be strong enough to face both Laila and Michael and win. As for the thousands of angel troops, well.... Those will annoy her no more than fleas annoy a dog.
Dawn was starting to rise, tickling the east with pink feathers. Laila shut her eyes. Last time I was here, I escaped through these shattered windows, but I’m back now, Zarel, and I brought some company. I’m going to take Hell from you and your husband. I am Laila, of the night, Lucifer’s daughter. I am fallen. I rise again. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, tears just stinging at their corners. Hell is mine. I’m going to make a home for myself there, and nothing can stop me.
With a flap of her wings, she leapt through the clerestory windows into Hell’s church.
She landed on the floor in darkness. The torches had been extinguished, and no demon eyes lit the shadows, nor did Laila hear demon hissing. As the angels joined her, filling the nave, Laila narrowed her eyes and raised her Uzi. Could Zarel have abandoned her post?
Then, with a crackle of flame, the altar shattered and Zarel emerged from within it. The Demon Queen shot up like a rocket, wreathed in fire, and broke through the roof, flying into the clouds.
Laila understood.
Damn.
“A trap!” she shouted. “Get out, get out!”
Without waiting an instant more, Laila shot out the roof after Zarel, wings flapping. From below, the blast hit her, tossing Laila into a spin. The shock-wave took the air out of her lungs, like a thud from Angor’s wings. Stones and smoke buffeted her and flames licked her.
She glanced over her shoulder. It was as she thought. The she-devil wired up the entire church. It looked like Zarel had planted several tons of explosives. Laila could barely see through the stinging smoke and dust, but it seemed like the explosion had leveled the church and the streets surrounding it. Laila returned her gaze above, flapping her wings, flying up. Where was Zarel? Laila could see only smoke, and she narrowed her tearing eyes.
There. She glimpsed a trail of fire—Zarel’s wake. Laila snarled and flew in pursuit. You won’t escape me.
The fiery trail led to the west, and soon Laila emerged from the smoke and saw Zarel. The Demon Queen flapped her wings, a fireball, scales glinting. She was heading toward Beelzebub and his garrison at the fort, Laila knew, cursing. If she reached that fort, she’d be untouchable.
Where was Michael? Laila glanced behind her, seeing only a cloud of smoke and dust. No angels followed. Had any escaped the church in time? Laila cursed again. She had planned on facing Zarel with Michael and a few thousand troops watching her back. Now she was alone again.
Laila tightened her lips, fighting down the anguish and fear that filled her stomach like ice. If Michael’s died on me, I’m going to kill him. She cursed the fear that refused to leave her, quickening her heartbeat and making her fingers tremble. She’d have to face Zarel herself.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” she cried out to Zarel. “Scared to face me without your hubby?”
Zarel spun around in the sky, her great wings churning the clouds. She hissed, eyes aflame, hair crackling. “Well, well, my dear,” the Demon Queen called back. “Were the cuts I gave your shoulder not enough? Do you want some more?”
Laila flew toward the sun, then swooped down with the sunrays at her back, to blind the demon. “Zarel,” she said, claws outstretched, “I beat the brains out of your dad last week. He whined like a baby. I bet you’re going to sound just the same.”
Zarel snarled and charged too. In the fiery clouds, the Demon Queen and half-angel clashed.
+ + +
Beelzebub wandered the forest, sandals crunching fallen pine needles. Dawn had risen, painting the old pines grayish green, sending ruby tendrils across the sky. No demons surrounded him; he had sent them back to the fort. They would be no more help here. He would find Bat El himself.
Beelzebub enjoyed walking through this forest, smelling the pines and sap. It amused him that trees should still grow in this land. Few trees had ever grown in the hot, sandy Holy Land, and most of those few had burned in Armageddon. More trees had survived than humans, he thought, wandering between the pines, tickled by the notion. Audacious bastards, these pines. Haven’t they heard that Armageddon was supposed to destroy the world?
When he crested a hill, Beelzebub saw valleys where indeed trees stood burned and blackened, but between them younger trees were growing. The planet was recovering from the first waves of Hell’s war, but things wouldn’t last long, Beelzebub knew. With Laila back and serving Heaven, the war flared with escalated brilliance. All those trees, birds, and bugs that thrived in the lull after the initial flame would soon meet the returning fire.
Beelzebub sighed. “My dear Laila, look what you set in motion. Couldn’t you have just stayed in exile?” The girl’s return had started a chain reaction; Beelzebub could not predict its end, but he doubted it would be pretty. Sooner or later he would have to kill her, and damn all those kisses he had once given her.
The rising sun revealed acorns strewn among the pebbles, cyclamens growing between mossy rocks, and mushrooms that clung to gnarly tree trucks. Birds fled as Beelzebub walked through the forest, as if they knew that here walked the lord of Hell. Beelzebub sighed. Why did the birds hate him? He liked birds. Even they had heard his reputation, it seemed.
In the morning light, Beelzebub soon located Bat El’s trail. A piece of her torn gown hung on a branch, and her footprints covered the moist earth. She was wounded; Beelzebub saw specks of angel blood on leaves and branches. He shook his head. Why did the angel flee? Did she truly think she could escape? She was young, brazen and foolish. Innocent. You almost got yourself killed, Bat El. He felt sorry for her. The little thing must be frightened here in the forest, hurt, bleeding. His pity only lasted a moment, though, replaced with disappointment. He could not tolerate these repeated attempts to escape him.
For an hour, he tracked her through the forest, until he reached a thin stream. A curtain of vines seemed to hide a burrow there, and Beelzebub saw specks of blood coat the leaves between angel footprints. He smiled slightly. Brave the girl might be, but not the best woodswoman. Not wanting to startle her, he found a mossy boulder and sat down, making a point of ignoring the burrow. The breeze rustled the trees, and the birds still chirped. No sound came from the burrow.
Beelzebub relaxed and began to whistle, a tune he would sing with Michael, Lucifer, and the others in the old days.
They would wander around these hills sometimes, he remembered, thousands of years ago, long before the rebellion. Raphael, now the great healer, had always known where to find good wine, and Gabriel had always known which villages held the prettiest, most willing girls. It was on these hills, Beelzebub remembered, that he knew his first human girl. He could no longer remember her name, but she was slim and short, with long brown hair, mocking eyes, and clothes that fell off whenever he was around. It wasn’t far from here. But it was such a different time.
Beelzebub remembered the first time he touched the human girl, kissed her, not really knowing what he was doing, but liking it. Oh, man, God was so pissed, Beelzebub remembered. He and his fellow angels had made more than a few Nephilim, monstrous spawn born half angel, half human, giants who terrorized the hillsides. But God, Heaven was boring, Beelzebub thought. Who wanted harps and prayer, when you could go down to Earth and know saucy little brunettes with a wicked side that could put demons to shame? Gabriel, Michael, Raphael... those three had grown up, of course, straightened out, took on high positions in Heaven. But he and Lucifer, the two scoundrels, the wildest members of their little gang, well, they would not bow the knee to God. Beelzebub laughed softly. Not even as their Nephilim spawn wandered around the hills, destroying villages, would they straighten out. No. He and Lucifer just kept drinking, knocking up human girls, and infuriating the powers that be.
Sitting on this mossy boulder, Beelzebub lowered his head. He missed Lucifer sometimes, but he kept telling himself that the old Lucifer, his best friend, the angel who rebelled against God with him, was very different from the Lucifer who became ruler of Hell. The Lucifer who refused to acknowledge Laila. The Lucifer who, when he learned of Beelzebub’s love for Laila, had thrown a fit and tossed his wine horn at Beelzebub.
Lucifer changed. Beelzebub closed his eyes. I had to kill him. I had no choice. He might have killed Laila otherwise, and maybe me too. The tempers he would have in his later years.... Beelzebub sighed. Why did things have to change? Michael, his older brother, was his enemy now. Lucifer was dead. Gabriel, once their partner in crime, now governed Heaven while Raphael wandered around healing people and preaching. It seems like only I stayed the same, Beelzebub thought. Then again, he could not believe that thought; he too had changed, had grown from a wild youth to becomes a prince of Hell, then finally a great king. If you lived long enough, he thought, everything changed. That life evolved, ever changing, could be the greatest curse for an immortal.
Is that why you like Bat El so much? he asked himself. Does the little thing alleviate the loneliness, the unbearable ancient memories?
“It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?” he spoke to the burrow. Bat El did not respond, and Beelzebub took a deep breath. “Why don’t you come out and sit beside me? We can enjoy the fresh air together.”
For a long time, the burrow was silent, so long that Beelzebub worried that Bat El wasn’t in there after all, or maybe she had crawled in to die. Finally, however, her voice broke the silence.
“It’s only a matter of time, Beelzebub. With Laila’s help, your brother is going to win this war, and he will kill you.”
“Oh, I seriously doubt both those things, Bat El. Now please, come out of there. You’re hurt and you must be thirsty and hungry. Don’t make me come in there to get you.”
“I’m not going back to that fort,” she said from inside the burrow, suddenly sounding scared and younger than ever.
He nodded. “Deal. You come out, I won’t force you to come back with me.”
“You’ll let me go?”
“At some point, yes, of course. First I’ll see how the story with Laila unfolds, and once things come to light, of course I’ll let you go. I won’t keep you a prisoner forever. For now, we’ll stay here in the forest. No demons. No locked doors. Just you and me, until you are healed, and until we figure out what to do with that sister of yours.”
For a long moment the burrow was silent and still. Finally Bat El crept out. Dried leaves filled her hair, mud and blood caked her face and limbs, and thorns had torn her clothes. She was pale, and her halo gave but soft light.
“I may be the devil,” he said to her, “but you, my dear, look like hell.”
“Charming as always,” she said.
“Let me take a look at you.” He stepped toward her and placed his hands on her limbs, examining her cuts and bruises.
“Let go of me,” she said and tried to push him aside, but he refused to let go.
“I’m just seeing how badly you’re hurt, don’t get all excited.” The cuts covered her, some from demon claws, most from thorns. “You’re going to be fine, but I want to take you to find some food and bandages.”
She shook her head, dry leaves falling from her hair. “No deal. You promised we’d stay here. God’s grace and light will heal me soon, and as for food, I’m not hungry.”
Her knees wobbled, and she sat down by the stream on fallen leaves, boulders and cyclamens surrounding her. Beelzebub sat beside her, close enough so that she could lean against him. For a moment they sat in silence, and then Beelzebub put his arm around her, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Strange place, this Earth, isn’t it?” he said softly.
She nodded and closed her eyes. “I miss Heaven.”
“Do you? Really? I hated Heaven when I was younger. I always snuck away to come down to Earth and raise some hell.”
She smiled only slightly, a half smile soon gone. “Well, you’ve always been a hell-raiser. I’m a good angel girl. I like Heaven. Come on, Beelzebub. Could it have been that bad? Dressing up in white on Saturdays, having dinner around the table with the other angels, sipping wine, playing the harp, singing.... Even you couldn’t find that too bad.”
“It was dreadful,” he said. “Heaven’s wine is too sweet, and I’ll take a rowdy bar song over harps any day.” He smiled. “You should visit Hell sometime. If you like parties, you’ll love Hell.”
She picked dried leaves off her clothes, as if she could somehow make herself stately and neat again. “Oh, I heard all about Hell. Fire, demons, torture, pain. No thanks.”
“Well, there is that part,” Beelzebub confessed. “But there’s also good, loud music, lots of drinking and singing, debauchery and craziness. No rules. No inhibitions. You’d like it.”
“I seriously doubt that. Besides, the hellfire would burn this poor angel to a crisp. My kind is forbidden there.”
Beelzebub feigned a sad sigh. “You and I, like the Capulets and the Montagues. A tragedy, really.”
“Only Romeo and Juliet loved each other,” she said, “and while you are clearly madly in love with me, I couldn’t care less about you.”
He blew her a kiss. “I always do like it when a girl plays hard to get.”
She was about to respond, when he tensed and hushed her with a finger to her lips. She tried to protest, and he shushed her. Silent, he looked around, listening. There. He heard it again, could smell it. A slow smile crept across his lips, and he leapt up and crashed through the bushes.
“Stay here,” he called to Bat El and leapt forward. He saw it there, a few paces ahead, rubbing against a tree: a young boar, two or three years old, nice and plump. When it saw Beelzebub, it tried to run, but if Beelzebub could chase Gabriel’s daughter across the skies, a boar stood little chance. He caught the squealing creature and silenced it with a slice of his claws across its neck.
“I’m a vegetarian,” Bat El said, watching as he carried the boar back.
“Say that after you smell my roast boar. You’ll find it quite irresistible. And if you still don’t like it, well, there would be plenty of vegetarian meals available back in my demon fort.”
As he started to collect firewood, Bat El sighed. “You really do think highly of yourself. How must it be for you, to love Beelzebub so much?”
“Someday maybe you’ll know,” he replied and piled up fallen branches. He sent sparks from his fingertips, and soon a bonfire w
as crackling.
They had no knife, so Beelzebub carved the boar with his claws as Bat El looked away. They had no pot nor pan, so Beelzebub held the meat over the fire in his hands, letting the flames caress him as they cooked the meat. He would have suggested flying for supplies, but Bat El still seemed so unnerved, he didn’t want to move her yet.
When the meat was ready, they ate in silence, watching the fire, and drank from the stream. Grease dripped down Bat El’s chin, and she hardly seemed to notice, the flames reflecting in her blue eyes. Laila once lived in these forests, Beelzebub remembered, running wild among the trees. When he had found her here ten years ago, she had been like an animal, hair knotty and tangled, fangs always bared, twig-thin and feral.
“Nothing like good bacon for breakfast,” he finally said, licking his lips.
Bat El washed her hands in the stream. “I can’t believe I ate that. Poor boar.”
“Poor Beelzebub,” he countered. “I miss my fort already.”
“It’s not your fort. It belongs to Heaven.”
“It belongs to the humans, actually, or did until we came to this planet.”
Bat El leaned back and stared at the crackling flames. Dry leaves still filled her hair. “Crusaders built that fort, hence it has always belonged to Heaven.”
“My darling, if you were truly so pure and godly, you’d wish to disassociate yourself from the Crusaders as much as possible. If anything, the bastards worked for us.”
Bat El tossed a twig into the fire. She watched it burn. “You know, you’d be a lot sweeter if sometimes you’d just shut up. Everything’s a big joke with you, isn’t it?”
He looked at her over the flames. “Not everything.”
She lowered her eyes, and he knew she was remembering their kiss, his hands on her, their lips and bodies pressed together. He knew he was thinking about it, and his blood suddenly felt hotter than hellfire.
Bat El fell onto her back in the fallen leaves. She pulled a couple acorns from under her, tossed them aside, and looked up at the canopy. “God, I wish I could stay here forever,” she said. “Away from this war, from fighting, from duty....” She seemed to realize what she had said, her face turned pink, and she blew out her breath. “But of course that’s impossible. We have responsibilities. We are leaders, both of us.”